


I Still Feel That Broken Kiss In My Hand

by Mysteronics



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clarke and Lexa are sentimental idiots, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Therapy, remix of an old OTH fic I read many many years ago
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 02:47:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5726878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysteronics/pseuds/Mysteronics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is the stupidest, most ridiculous thing she's ever agreed to do. Ever. And that's saying a lot, because in the last few years, she's done a lot of stupid and probably ridiculous things. Nothing that illegal or that dangerous, but still. Enough to frustrate her mother and worry her best friend." </p>
<p> Small Town AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Still Feel That Broken Kiss In My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an old OTH fic, entirely rewritten but the plot points are mostly the same. This is my first time writing in a while so be gentle.  
> Currently looking for a Beta or just if you wanna talk S3 hmu at root-of-the-sky.tumblr.com

This is the stupidest, most ridiculous thing she's ever agreed to do. Ever. And that's saying a lot, because in the last few years, she's done a lot of stupid and probably ridiculous things. Nothing that illegal or that dangerous, but still. Enough to frustrate her mother and worry her best friend. _Wells_! The the thought of him made Clarke grip the steering wheel tighter, as though maybe she could choke her car into stopping. It didn’t work. She was still speeding down the highway, the rolling wastes of barren, burnt and broken land to her left, on the right just over the horizon. The light changed, and Clarke abandoned all thoughts of that traitor. Instead she pulled her hand away to crank up the music. High enough her ears were ringing with the sounds of angsty indie pop - sharp baying music to fill her mind with someone else’s screams, so she wouldn’t have to hear the reverberations of the shouting match she had only hours ago with her mother rattling around her head anymore. So she didn’t have to think about how Abby looked so broken in the face of Clarke’s fury. So she didn’t have to think about her choices. Her responsibility.

 She gripped the steering wheel harder. She bopped her head in time to the rattling music, in tempo with the quiet roar of her car in her hands, she moved in symbiosis with the drak woods around her, on the way to this stupid podunk town to have to sit through the torture that was _therapy_. Clarke scoffed to herself, and focused back on the road. Her surrounding were beginning to blur around her. Just as she liked it. In fact the harder she gripped the faster all the trees, and bushes, dark muddy marvels on the verge, went passed. She glanced swiftly at her speed. _50 mph_ . The needle was shuddering violently as it started to rise steadily. Clarke grinned mischievously at her dashboard, the dimmed light, was flashing intermittently to show she was low on oil. _Good_! She thought, this old hunk a junk she owned, with it’s long black body, spit shined and polished only yesterday gleamed, Clarke watched as the reflection of old, oranged street lights danced in tandem across her hood. She observed the fiery blisters flash; in and out of existence on her hood. _Her hood. Rita’s_. This car that was older than Clarke herself. It was her Dads’. When she was very young she would watch as her father fretted and worried over it, always tinkering with something he was, but it showed, her father’s love burned brightly in Rita. Even when she was four years old, Clarke understood; Rita was the shining beacon of the Griffin Family. Her mother liked to joke that Rita was her father’s first love. Her father’s eyes would always crinkle at her mother, until he couldn’t hold in his smile anymore and his lips would follow; they would crinkle up into a grin, and depending on the day; a jovial chuckle or a boisterous bark of laughter. Her father always said Rita was his first Pride and Joy. Then he found her mother, and then they made Clarke. He always said Rita was the woman who taught him how to love something. Abby was the one who taught him the power of reciprocal love and Clarke was the product of it all. The great wood on the horizon was creeping up. As she gripped tighter and tighter, the tension moved up her arm, and suddenly her shoulders were pulled tight, the thin shrubs and tree-line were started to thin. She was on the verge of the valley, where her fate awaited her mockingly. The verge began to blur as Clarke checked her speed again. _82mph_. The road was blissfully clear on this dark night. There was little time left until the road would begin to make its descent into the basin of the forest. Just up ahead under the foot of Mt. Weather, the road would turn abruptly. For the first time that night the dark tree canopy above her cleared enough for her to see the great heights of the mountain. The verge began to blur. The light had changed. Suddenly Clarke could see the white precipice of the mountain in sharp relief. The craggy face of it, dark The light changed, and Clarke abandoned all thoughts of that traitor, she let go of all thoughts of her mother. She abondoned herself to the face of the mountain. Her grip on the steering wheel was tightening again, Clarke pulled her hand away to crank up the music.  
 It's been years. Six, to be exact. Six years of living without her father, and Six years of being really angry about it. Six years, and all of a sudden everyone takes notice and thinks it's an issue. Of course it's an issue. Frankly, it pisses her off that no one cared (that's an exaggeration, but she'll go with it) until she had a minor nervous breakdown. Well, it wasn't so much a breakdown as it was a chain of really awful events that just served to remind her how much life can suck sometimes. And it really does suck sometimes.  
 

Firstly, she broke up with her boyfriend. Yeah, yeah, it happens, and it's high school, and it all feels a lot more dramatic than it really is, but it was still hard. They were together for only a few months, but she thought she loved him and maybe she did. He had a baby girl from a previous relationship, and then out of the blue the relationship came back, Raven fell from out of the void and into Clarke’s lap in wide eyed wonder of the life Finn had cultivated at the Dropship Prepschool. Finn was a good guy, decent and hard-working, he was a loving man, a man grown out of the wastelands of the Capital. A man who had been kicked like a dog all his life. And a man who knew his bite was worse than his bark. When his chance for redemption returned, the chance for his daughter to have her mother in her life. When she could see Jenny’s face light up in delight at the sight of Raven. When she saw the smile reflect on Raven’s face; a face she saw most often pulled into a scowl, when she saw it soften and glow when Jenny was nearby. When out of the corner of her eye; she saw Finn smiling just as broadly, that was when Clarke knew she had lost him. Or that maybe he was never hers to begin with. From the corner of her eye Clarke saw a smile she had no part in. The smile on Finn’s face was one she had to work days, sometimes, to draw out of him. A smile Clarke had no knowledge of how to produce. When she saw them smile at at each over their baby’s head. That was when Clarke knew she had lost him, that he was never hers to begin with. Finn was the first boy to break her heart. But what hurt the most was the thought of losing Jenny. The thought of losing this little person she loved so dearly was what kept her close, kept her at the Dropship, Jenny was who kept Clarke from Finn. Not Raven, not envy. But the jealousy Clarke felt whenever Finn beamed. And so when she lost him, she lost more than just him. She lost Raven and Jenny as well. Then a couple new students came to the school and everything got even more messed up. Octavia started dating this Lincoln guy, and Anna started becoming Peyton's friend. Anna who peyton could see but couldn’t deal with, she couldn’t pull the weight of one more person onto her back, especially not one, so irreparably broken as her, he got pressured into running for student governance, Wells was her campaign manager. Octavia put up the posters all of her own volition and annoyed Bellamy, Octavia’s guardian, into hosting “campaign rallies”, or as Wells liked to refer to them: “reasons to get drunk”, at their small apartment at the other end of town. She won, didn’t have to lift a finger but she did it. All she had to do was turn up to the debate, shout down the idiot senior Murphy, and out reason all the other Seniors running and suddenly she was the first Freshman President of the Student Council in Arc history. And it scared her how much she actually liked the feeling, the rush of power associated with people finding truth in her words, it was a heady drug for her.

 Everyone in town knew of Jake and Abby Griffin’s daughter, the one that was to go on to do Great Things. Clarke remained adamant throughout that she wanted to become a doctor not a politician. Both her parents sat on the town council, and from a young age Clarke listened eagerly to their discussions about Goings-ons on the Council. The Griffin family had a nightly dinner time ritual, no matter who was in the house, dinner would be served promptly at seven o’clock. The old Grandfather clock in the corner of the living room would chime with the deep thrum of a church bell. Clarke had studyed that clock for hours, she was often sat infront of it when she was placed in time-outs: because she had ripped her mother’s work papers to build paper boats and paper aeroplanes with Wells, w beacause even from a young age Clarke’s thoughts and words could be caustic to people’s mental health. And so any eruption too big, any fit of resistance to far, any action that pushed her mother’s nerves of steel too snapping, would earn her a time-out, where she was dragged over by her ear and was made to sit infront of the Grandfather Clock, Young Clarke would sit infront of it cross-legged, her despondent head hung, staring at the ground if she felt guilty, or unbent; elbows on her knees, fists digging into her still chubby cheeks if she was still burning in righteous indignation at her mother’s rotten judgement. Oftentimes Wells would get caught up in Clarke’s schemes and he would join her in front of the clock, both wicked in her mother's’ eyes, they were not allowed to talk, for fear of strict reprisal from Abby and for Wells; the knowledge that his father would be hearing about this. Instead they were both allowed a pad of paper and a pencil each, so they would scribble each other silly notes, or make up games, or whisper; their heads drawn close together as they knew Abby couldn’t hear them while sat in her office, even with the door flung menacingly open. They would always find ways to amuse themselves. Often when it was her father doling out the punishment he was much more reasonable, when Clarke did something she knew to be wrong, something her mother wouldn’t approve of, they would talk it out, never raising his voice he would stand Clarke, Wells, and occasionally Octavia all infront of him and walk up and down the line like a Staff Sergeant, inspecting the troops. The punishment was never as severe when her father was there, he’d always put on a vinyl record in the corner of the room and fiddle with the sound board until Abby was finished fretting, he brought sense to Abby’s angst, and together they would often debate the situation with Clarke; not against her. The music Jake played always let Clarke know if he was on her side or not, when it was a minor infraction he would play something jaunty, pull Abby to him and make her smile, he’d reprimand Clarke, but by then Clarke always knew she was safe. The punishment would be laxer, often he would make her sit infront of the Grandfather clock, and after warming up Abby making her smile and laugh and dance, he would slide in on his belly next to Clarke commando crawling up to her and talking to her about the Great Clock she was sat in front of, he’d explain the mechanism behind the clock face how lots and lots of small gears and levers can make a clock keep time, he explained the pendulum behind the glass case and taught her to listen to the intervals of its constant beat. He explained how this clock was made by Abby’s family back in Scotland, made in a Great workshop by Great people, who had to flee their livelyhood after the most recent English invasion, how Abby’s parents came to America to escape the persecution of all the gears behind the clock face, he would point out the craftmanship of the feet the detail put into every mark, that with both the thought and the time amazing things can be achieved, with the hidden mechanism it could run smoothly and operate the alarm that let them know when to wake in the morning and come together in the evening. But to do that, he explained, you had to turn the clock back sometimes, like a piano, like a car, like a body; a clock can become out of tune. Losing the rhythem of the world is the worst thing you can do, he’d say with a grin. And Clarke would grin back, safe with her father and his great knowledge of how things worked. Her father could make sitting in front of a clock watching the ticking of time; wonderful. _Things only stop because we forget to look after them_. When Jake would make Clarke sit in front of the glass face of the pendulum, Wells would often join her in her corner in solidarity, even though he wasn’t in trouble; after Jake had dished the punishment and left the living room blaring with music, with life, and he set up in the kitchen singing loudly in that terrible off-key way he did, Wells would scoot closer and closer to Clarke, his noises masked from Jake’s ears, and Clarke would throw hopeful glance over her shoulder and cautious looks at the open door of the kitchen, knowing if Jake caught Wells in his slow crawl across the room Wells would be reprimanded and made to go back to his colourings, so in the times when Wells made it all the way across the chasm of the room before Jake returned in, to see them sitting in soldarity in front of the clock with their arms tightly linked, Jake would laugh loud and boisterous and remark on how hard it was to split up the pair of them; and when it was Wells, Clarke and Octavia Jake often forwent the punishment of clock sitting all together, instead hiring his little band to do odd jobs around the house, _because children are incredibly valuable, because they can always see and reach things adults can’t_ , he would declare, _this battle is already lost, how am I to stop the three of you together, eh?_ Even Octavia respected him and that was a gift to this day she has only given to one other man; Bellamy. Before pronouncing his Grand Judgement Clarke’s father liked to put on a grand face, like some of the marble sculptures Clarke saw in trips to D.C., and he would hum, march across the room one wall to the other, one hand scratching at whatever beard he had at the time, making it very obvious to Young Clarke that what ever decision was made now, would decide everything - if she got dessert after dinner? if she could have dinner at all or would she be sent to her room? If she was going to have to read to him as he washed up? If she would get no allowance? If she was going to have to apologise to that boy Jasper for making him cry? Jake could always find something to fix, and _with fixing, the rule is the more the merrier_. There was only two times Clarke heard her father raise his voice. And the second time it was directed at her, and it shook her down to her marrow and molten bones.

 It started because Mrs. Hudson, the old cranky crone across the road; who liked to sit on her porch during summer, narrating everyone that passed by to herself. One day, as Wells and Clarke were walking home from school on a blisteringly hot day, Mrs. Hudson said a bad word; and worse than that, she said it to Wells. Clarke stopped dead in her tracks and was about to turn around and tell that old lady off - when Wells grabbed her arm and pulled her away, _it’s not worth it, just don’t. My dad says it’s best not to react to that kinda stuff_ , but Clarke was indignant because this was the perfect time to say something back, to tell her she’s wrong and to buzz off, because Wells was her very best friend and she didn’t like anyone to insult him. When the reaching the crossing for the next block, they stopped and Wells dropped his arm that was still holding tight to Clarke. They stared at each other now adversaries over something so trivial as someone's words, they argued for ten minutes not moving, apart from Clarke trying to break free from Wells’ patient understanding eyes, and race back down the road to tell that old lady where she could stick it - and she saw Wells smiling shyly at the ground. So she stopped and because Wells still couldn’t look her in the eye she instead flung her arms around his neck and squeezed with all her might, and whispered in his ear that she didn’t believe that rotten old lady and he shouldn’t either, she didn’t stop hugging him until he held her back and let out a sniffle, then their eyes met again both slightly glossy and they were friends again. They walked the rest of the way home holding hands and later told Theolonius who was on shift for babysitting responsibilities as Abby and Jake were at work. They calmly explained what happened, well Wells did anyway, Thelonious was more wary of Clarke and would often tell her to calm herself before speaking, because being a pastor meant that they were speaking with God as well. He put them and the matter to bed a few hours later saying ‘God will Judge her. Now go to sleep.’  
Unsatisfied with such a response the next day at break, when Wells was engaged in a game of ‘it’ across the playground, Clarke drew Octavia aside, loudly pronouncing her intent that they were to play at skipping and should be left alone along with a fierce stare at all the surrounding children that ensured no one in their right minds would think about coming over, she pulled Octavia over to the far side of the field, behind the sparse bushes that lined the play area and relayed to her the incident of the previous afternoon. Octavia immediately bristled at hearing the news, she picked up twig and started poking at the bushes with it, Clarke, feeling mighty vindicated, hatched a plan with Octavia to egg the old lady’s house and run mud up her porch. across the road said a rude word! And she said If she was going to have to go wash Mrs. Hudson’s windows herself despite the fact that both she and Octavia threw eggs at it, and only Clarke got caught. (They found Octavia hiding in the woods behind the Griffin House a few hours later with cuts on her palm and a twisted ankle after she fell out of the tree she was hiding in). Both she and Octavia listened with bated breath as Jake hummed and hawed, waited until he finally coaxed the smile that Abby had hidden under her fear of ‘whatever had happened to Octavia in the time since she was missing. Once Octavia’s hands had been bandaged and Abby had got ice for her foot and carefully arranged her on the sofa, keeping her leg elevated, and having placed a kiss on the top of her head. She was ready to listen to her Husband, she would move to wrap her cold hands around his warm chest and lean her on his shoulder, knowing all her kids were back safely. Jake encircled Abby in his arm, drawing her in and place a kiss on the top of her head. As soon as she released the sigh she had been holding in for hours, and relaxed into his embrace. Jake turned his attention to Clarke and Octavia, his piercing blue gaze keeping them frozen in position. His eyes swept over them once then twice, in sharp cold movements. Clarke had only heard her father shout twice in her life to this point: the first when an inebriated driver reversed into the back right taillight of Rita, and the other only an hour before, Clarke and Octavia shared a glance, co-conspirators in a plot that sounded a lot funner before they were caught, Clarke noticed Octavia’s hands were shaking and she gulped down the desire to reach out for her hand. Clarke felt a chill on the back of her neck. Here it comes.  
 

Clarke could feel the wind in her ears, she stood on the ball of her feet so she was ready to spring away at a moments notice, Clarke hoped Octavia would follow her quickly, or maybe she could come back for her. There was no reason for her parents to punish Octavia, she was only doing what Clarke wanted, she had just read about it in a book, it was a stupid plan but neither Octavia or Wells had anything to do with it! But this part was never written down. Standing on the knife edge of her parent’s love and acceptance. Waiting for Judgement to fall from that very high precipice Clarke was still looking up at.  
Clarke would pull her would rest on and with the Grandfather Clock ticking faithfully behind her, the one that was made by her mother’s Scottish ancestry, the clock that belonged to them, to her mother’s deceased family. The clock; that one that could ring only twice a day, the clock that rang twice an age, was about to ring again.

_What were you thinking!_

 It rang only twice a day, at seven in the morning and seven at night. Her mother explained the clock to her as a Keeper of Time. The oak wood finish was finely crafted from the half connected arc at the top. This spectre behind Clarke always. About to decide if she was the devil or an angel.  
In front, of the fine, sleek body of the casing, that someone spent hours labouring over, running a sander over again and again and again, until it was smooth and pleasing to the touch. Before the clawed feet that dug into the wood of the floor; she stood on the feet of this great monolith that towered over a baby Clarke, he taught her to watch her step.  
 

To the council standing before her, the three adults with Wells waiting just behind them; The Council was how she met her best friend Wells. His father, Thelonious, a wise, pious strict widower. A parent Wells explained: ‘whose bark is worse than their bite.’ Clarke and Wells were wary of Councils or Governance in any shape or size, they knew their parents, they knew the sins of their fathers. That despite all their postures and airs could never escape the pull of the Arc, some little town in the Appalachians. Ridiculed by Big City folk as being redneck and podunk. Wells would say that the reason his father was so harsh, why he always pushed and was never satisfied with the work Wells did, the time and training and commitment, to both basketball and academics, why he fought so much with the basketball coach Kane at the Dropship, was because he wanted the best for his son. Clarke shook her head of the thought. She couldn’t bare to think of Wells any longer, not after what he did.  
From the Corner of her Eye she saw Octavia shaking, bruised, needing someone to hold her hand; from the Corner of her Mind she felt the thrum of the Great Clock in her bones. It was time to decide. The Silence had stretched long enough. She knew what she had to do, she had to look her father in the eye, and see his judgement of her. And there was no music now, no way to know how he felt, only a wide gaping silence. She felt tears unbidden in her eyes. Never forget, fear is an emotion, Clarke. Clarke could deal with rain, she had felt it on her face many times again. Now there was just the lump in her throat. That was tricky, it was taught and hard, like the time she swallowed a marble, like the time Thelonious told her it was a sin to like girls, like the words she needed would have to climb from her lungs up the mountain face of her throat. She didn’t think she could speak and look her father in the eye at the same time. it would be too much, how could she climb a mountain in a blizzard? So instead she watched her feet on the wood floor drew her breath to the thrum of her heart and looked up.

_She had asked her father once how he knew he loved Abby. They were sitting in the garage. Duke Ellington was playing. She sat on the portable workbench next to the tool box and was handing her father the right tool as he asked for it: while he was bent over Rita; trying to find out why the spark plug kept popping out, and narrating his frustration to Clarke, who was more than happy to sit there guarding the toolbox watching her father work. She was thinking about Ella Fitzgerald and how she sometimes sang with Louis Armstrong who played the trumpet just like Wells did, and did they love each other? They always were singing about love so they must love each other, right? Clarke watched her feet swing back and forwards like she was on a swing. And that’s when she asked him. While she was watching her feet. “Dad, how’d you know you loved Mum.” Her father glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, she was still just sitting there swinging her legs, one arm wrapped protectively guarding the toolbox. And he chuckled. “I dunno, kiddo.” Clarke hummed despondently still swinging her legs unhappy that she couldn’t find an answer to love. Jake watched from the corner of his eye Clarke’s shoulder slump only slightly. “Hey.” He said, rising from his position bent over Rita. He moved swiftfully over to the rolling workshop table Clarke was perched on grabbing both handels and giving it a little shake to make Clarke look up at him. Blue met Blue. Ice met Ice. The Daughter looked up at her Father in hope. And he smiled at her. “I don’t know, because no one knows. No one can know: why we fall in love; only that we do. Love is never something you know. It’s something you have to understand yourself. In here.” He said putting his clenched fist to Clarke’s chest, pressing comfortingly, broadly, wholy over her heart. “I can’t tell you what love is Kiddo, that’s something you have to find for yourself.” That made Clarke’s face fall again; “But how do I do that? All of the songs say love is great and if it is I want it too. You and mum fell in love, you must know!” At that Jake threw his head back and let out a loud, warm, barking laugh. “You think I know!” He laughed again, raising his head and laughing at the skys, and the stars, and the gods in those stars. “Kid, listen. I know just as much about love as you do. Because I have my family. I have Rita here,” He lent over to give Rita a jovial tap and she responded in symphony with a clang of her own. I have your mother, and only goodness knows how I managed to score her.” He gave Clarke a conspiratorial wink, which made her giggle. “And I have you!” This he exclaimed loudly. Shouting it to the world. “The most amazing love you can find is the one you help produce. Doesn’t matter who you are or what you make. Love, Care and Attention can make anything Golden. Like you.” He chucked her chin, and ran a hand through her white blonde hair, pulling her to press a kiss to the top of her head. “You have taught me the most of all, about love. And because of that in here.” He pulled his fist back to her chest, “you have the most precious love of all. The love of a family. You know where the word heart comes from don’t you?”_   
_“No?” Reponded Clarke looking puzzled._   
_“It comes from where I come from. The cold pits of the North, from biting wind and darkest warmth. As long as you always carry to lights with you. Your torch in your hand for seeking treasure. And the warmth of the hearth in your chest.” He opened his palm against Clarke’s small breastbones. And pushed gently, steadily, enough so Clarke could feel it and her chest rocked on her swing, only finding balance by pushing back against her father’s open palm._   
_“Because of this Clarke, because you have the fire of our ancestors in your blood and in your heart. The hearth of Griffin will always be open to you. As long as you don’t forget it, Clarke. This is the most important, always keep a corner for a hearth, okay?” Clarke nodded, enthralled by her father’s eyes, so yearning for her to understand._   
_“So.” She reasoned slowly, “As long as I have a torch with me I can find love too.”_   
_Her father chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you could say that Kiddo. Here,” he began to rummage in his toolbox, “ah, there it is!” He pulled out a small flashlight and held it in front of Clarke. “Here my Lady your torch.” He bowed low as he presented it to her, not looking up again until she had taken the torch from his hand._   
_Clarke handled it carefully, delicately. This was a flashlight. What was she supposed to do with this? She looked back up at her father, holding his gift gingerly in her hands. “Well,” she drew out before looking into his expectant eyes. “What am I supposed to do with this.”_   
_Her father beamed at her. “Why point the way of course.” Before Clarke could say anything he bent down and realised the latch on the wheels of the workbench. Juddering Clarke violently._   
_“Dad!” She screeched, as with another huge jangle the old rusty workbench sprang to life under Jake’s hands, as he pulled it and Clarke, who was gripping desperately to the toolbox, out the open garage door and down the dark empty street. “Dad, we dropped the socket wrench!”_   
_“It’s too late for that now, we’re on a roll.” Her father laughed joyously, he pulled back and spun Clarke and the toolbox, which was rattling rather dangerously now, in a wide arc around the street. Closer and closer until he pulled her back to face him. “Now, which way kid?” He said, glancing right and left up the long dark road they lived on. Cement set ablaze by streetlights, at even intervals all the way to the horizon. Clarke looked right, down passed old Mrs. Hudson’s house, towards town and school, and the grocers that always smelt like the hospital. She looked left, down the long winding road on the edge of the wilderness, towards the dark hills of the interior, Away from the bright lights of the city. Clarke clicked on the flashlight, and with a small grumble it erupted, shining it’s light at her father’s chest as he waited before her._   
_“That way.” Clarke decided pointing her torch to the left and her father’s right._   
_Jake took a second moment to look down the long road before them, “good choice, sweetheart.”_   
_And then he was off, dragging his sled behind him with one arm, he powered forward with the other. And now they were running. The world whipping past them, bushes, and trees, and all the creatures in the woods coud hear Jake and Clarke’s jubliant cries. They passed farmhouse and field. Passed Well’s house, where the curtains were closed. The raced along a side street, and at every intersection Jake halted and let Clarke point the way. The were coming closer and closer to Mt. Weather. towards the basin. Where the roads became more treacherous, less steady. But Jake could be steady enough for the road. As long as Clarke’s hand remained steady enough to point the way. They turned another corner onto a small backalley road._   
_Clarke was giggling at her fathers every hoot and howl. She wanted to tell him she was feelign dizzy. “Da-” Clarke tried again, but got cut off with a laugh as they hit a speed bump. For a moment, the smallest and grandest moment Clarke had ever felt, she was flying. Completely weightless, she thought she could see the stars in her father. For a moment. Just a moment._   
_Before she was pulled back to the ground_   
_“Oof,” both she and the toolbox came clattering back down, and Clarke lost her grip on the torch. And watched in horror for a moment as it sped further and further out of her reach. “Daaad!” She screamed this time and Jake immediately halted. Turning so swiftly back to Clarke; she bounced into his chest._   
_“Are you alright? That speed bump wasn’t too much?” He was slightly winded but not gasping as Clarke now was._   
_“No.” Clarke was gulping hard now. She felt tears prick at the back of her. How was she to tell her father she had dropped the torch he gave her._   
_She felt tears slip unbidden down her face. She looked at her hands damning them for not holding tight enough. She could meet his eyes not now. “The torch I dropped it.”_   
_Finally she looked up into his eyes and saw relief spread across his face. “Hey, it’s okay, kid.” He took her face in his hand drying the tears in her eyes. “It was only a flashlight. An ornament. We’ll get another one. It’s too dark out here now to find it. Well not without another torch I reckon.” He chuckled._   
_“We can come back for it?” Clarke asked, using her fists to dry the tears on her face._   
_“Of course, kid.” He chucked her chin. “There’s always tomorrow. Here, look.” At that he stepped away from the trolley. Clarke couldn’t help the little gasp that left her, hugging at thet toolbox once again. Jake however strolled over to the other side of the verge, and watching his feet moved over to a tall oak tree a few meters from the road. He put a hand on it. “See this tree here Clarke?” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Tree’s remember everything Clarke. I’m sure this tree won’t mind helping us remember.”_   
_“How’s it gonna do that?” Clarke asked, as her father moved back to stand infront of her._   
_“If we ask it too of course.” And there was the smile that kept the stars apart. “Hand me a screwdriver, young one.”_   
_Clarke dug in the toolbox and deposited in her father’s open hand his favourite black screwdriver, he got from his father._   
_Jake looked down at it, “that’s a fine choice, kid.” He grinned as he moved back to the tree trunk and carefully keeping one palm flat against the trunk, he raised his arm and carved a small X._   
_After taking a step back and finding himself satisfied with his work. Jake tuened back to Clarke’s worried face. “Hey, don’t look so down, Kid. Because of that mark we can always find our way back here. We’ll always know that tree is where, you dropped your first torch. Because the tree will remember for us. You lost one torch. I have lost many over the years and so will you. But do you know the secret to finding things?”_   
_“Yes,” Clarke begged desperate to know._   
_“I’ve already told you, kid. You just have to follow your hearth back home. And then start again the next day.” At that he pulled up and took the trolley from the end closest to Clarke. “Let’s go home now, lick our wounds, and return tomorrow.” Jake turned the trolley pointed it towards home. Down the long, winding road they had run, and he started walking._   
_Clarke glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, he was watching the road ahead. So she did the same, she crossed her legs and settled back against her father’s broad chest and let him guide her home. She looked up at the stars in the sky, and wondered where they went in the day, what kind of things did stars search for during the long hours of the day between the chiming of the Grandfather Clock._   
_“Y’know, kid,” her father mused, Clarke could feel the thought in his chest rising out of him._   
_“You asked me how I knew I was in love with your mother. And the answer I think is quite boring compared to the songs. I fell in love in a moment. And it’s not grand and spectacular falling in love. No, quite the opposite I was bloody terrified the first time I saw your mother. Because it was like everything in me and my world stopped. That time of my life was over and a new love had begun. and the falling is terrible; it’s awkward and bumbling, because I think for men falling in love is different than for women, a different experience, my love for her has grown over time, it is always growing.”_   
_He paused here for a moment, looking sideways at the trees. Clarke had turned her attention from the stars now to watch her father closely as he considered something in the trees._   
_“Love is an activity and a practice. It is something to cultivate. Because loving someone so wholy and truly. Is giving someone a piece of your heart and you hearth. Love demands sacrifice from ourselves, and in turn we can demand love from the world. So no, falling in love is not at all like the songs. Because it only takes a moment. To fall. Make sure you always look where you’re stepping kid. Make sure you know where your home is before you go searching for something better. Make sure you are ready to sacrifice your mind and your body to the spirit of another.”_   
_He chuckled here. “I think this is where I disagree with Prufrock and where I agree with the Hollow Men; your world is completely destroyed when you’re falling in love, everything about you is torn down from the inside out. Because ‘this is the way the world ends, / not with a bang, but with a whimper.’ When I saw your mother’s face at that lecture, I fell in love, and it took me a while to accept it. I was very stubborn back then. But now looking back, I can know, because when I first saw your mother I felt like all the air had left my chest and all the metal in my bones had turned to sawdust. I was floored. Your mother will say it’s because I had had a few. But I think she knew too, straight away. That from the first words that passed our lips this was going to be a great beginning or a dismal end. It’s rare to find someone that can stop you heart at a glance, and make you question whether your hearth is in the right place. Your mother is my home now. And I know this is true, all of it, because I felt the exact same way when I first saw you, kid.”_   
_At this he grinned down at Clarke, they were close to home now, and attracting odd stares as they moved slowly through town: her father, the trolley; the toolbox, and her. But neither cared they just grinned at each other._   
_“You’re my torch, kid. You are how I know I have to come home, and you’re mother is why I want to. And, of course! Rita taught me all this, by being patient with my muddling hands, your mother taught me to be patient with my muddling thoughts, until my words were worth the air I used to say them, and you starchild, have taught me to be patient with others, because kids carry scars just like trees do. With a kid you have to be careful you’re leaving the right mark.”_   
_Clarke gazed, entranced at the stars, listening to her fathers, soft words stop in his chest as the rounded the corner of their road. And faced their house._   
_“Oh damn, we’ve missed dinner time. Come on kid, we better get back in, your mother is going to be furious.”_

And there it was. As Rita crested the hill bringing the valley into sharp relief. On the road to Mt. Weather medical centre, next to the basin that housed the woods and Polis. There it was. The bright white shining beacon where Clarke was gonna meet her doom in therapy. The radio was still blasting. But here it was coming up, and up and up. And -

“Shit!”

There was a shadowy figure walking along the verge, that suddenly turned to cross. Clarke muttered curses under her breaths as she pressed against the break as hard as she could, eventually slipping the gear and pulling the hand break. Rita came to a screeching halt just a foot in front of the legs of the idiot crossing the road.  
The figure hadn’t moved. Clarke let out the breath she had been holding as she looked up at who was blocking her way. And then she felt all the breath leave her body.  
It was a girl, sullen and all in black with a grey hood pulled over her head from under her jacket. She stared at clarke, very still, until she carefully pulled down her hood and removed an earbud Clarke hadn’t previously seen. The girl tilted her head at Clarke, her dark eyes roaming over her as if to say, ‘well, what are you going to do? You almost ran me over.’  
Clarke scoffed under her breath, she didn’t have time for this. She was supposed to be in the Medical Centre in five minutes and she hadn’t even parked yet. And this girl was still not moving.  
Clarke sighed again drawing air back into her body and with an impatient flick of her hands that the road was wide open and she was at a dead stop, so why was this girl with dark hair and dark clothes and dark eyes, still lingering?  
The girl tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at Clare’s motion. And with that she turned and walked away, her hand moving to replace the earbud she had removed and pulling her hoodie up again over her head she headed towards the shining gates of the medical institute.  
Clarke stayed seated for a moment not moving watching the girl’s back as she walked away. She closed her eyes tipped her head back and let out a long breath. That was too close. That was why she was here. Reckless endangerment. That was why she needed therapy. Clarke sighed to the stars and they sighed back, waiting expectantly for something to happen.

-


End file.
